David Legwand: slumping or misused?

why, oh why, can’t the masses, and my seat mates, understand that this is a vitally important part of the game?

I wouldn’t worry about Ward. He looks great no matter what. I thought him and Dustn Boyd were our best players against Detroit. I say keep Boyd and Ward together and try Leggy with them maybe.

I think what is going on is that Trotz has finally figured out exactly how to use Legwand. He’s never going to be the offensive player people wished him to be. Trotz finally realized that and stopped putting Legwand’s round peg in the square hole. He’s taken the offensive pressure off of Legwand and said go out there, play defense against the best players on the other team and just focus on that, any offense is a bonus. I honestly think this has been Legwand’s best year ever.

The problem is that the things he does don’t show up in a stat sheet, and because Legwand has been the whipping boy around here since day one for no apparent reason, too many fans do nothing but look at his stats and use it as an excuse to do more Legwand bashing. There have been countless times this season where I’ve seen goals that came as a direct result of Legwand’s play, his skating or positioning. He didn’t get a point for it so it doesn’t show up in the box score, but without what he was doing those goals don’t get scored.

Would it better if he could do all this and score 25 goals? Sure. Would it be better to not be paying him 4.5 million? Yes. But that doesn’t mean anything is “wrong” with him. That just means he’s not the player other people wanted him to be. He’s still a good player and very important to this team. It’s way past time for people to realize who and what Legwand is and stop holding the high draft pick and the high salary over his head to try to force him to be something he’s not.

And I think changing lines to try to get Legwand to score more would be a terrible move. If we mix up the lines to put Dumont with him, we lose our best defensive unit. And for what? 2, 3 more goals from Legwand? Why not just let him keep doing what he’s been doing all year? Maybe you haven’t noticed but we’ve won 46 games and we’re going into the playoffs as the 5th seed in the western conference. Why change things now when they are obviously working for us?

next year trying a few things, like wing, with leggy is fine. leave him in his role for now. we are playing well so lets not screw around now. never leggy and jp together though cause neither of them ever want to shoot.

Wait till the Playoffs are finished! If Nashville wins it first playoffs series or maybe more, i think people will understand what Legwand means to the team. He faces day in day out the leagues top forwards, who else from the team could do that? Put Sully or Arnie in a shutdown line? You’re joking!!!